Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

There is a decision to be made somewhere, eg not the Isles of Scilly.

The issue with Barnet/Haringey is Haringey has a higher infection rate than Barnet. It might make sense to close primary schools in areas with a rate higher than some threshold. Once that value is selected it would seem logical to apply it consistently. Birmingham is 'only' at 350/100k which is a lot lower than London at 750/100k.

Although Westminster primaries were on the closed list at 450/100k which doesn't seem all that different to Birmingham.

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Sorry

What we really need to beat the virus is a 6 week complete lockdown, no more than 1 essential shop a week, 1h max exercise in local area. Schools, unis, work places, construction, playgrounds, everything shut down.
Breaches incur punishing fines or prison.

During that time as many vunerable and elderly vaccinated, so that immunity will be there by the time lockdown is lifted.

6 week small relaxation in lockdown, at the end of which most over 65s should have had at least one dose of vaccine.

But no one wants that, government can’t afford it, collective mental health would plummet and a whole list of other issues would arise.

I have family in Korea, who regularly worry that we are all going to die. Then again, us Koreans tend to stay the fuck at home when told to, especially if your parents lives might be at stake.

They have until Sunday night to u-turn yet...

I like your plan but I think too many people don't have enough savings to buy food etc for 6 weeks or formal evidence of earnings to get furlough payments. I'm also not sure vaccine availablity will be high enough.

Obviously this isn’t going to happen but if each household was given a cheque/payment of say £1000 to stay at home?

That also means some people will use it to buy £1000 of drugs or gamble it away, and then complain that they are starving, but would have been cheaper than the furlough scheme I think?

I think they are on schedule currently to get most people above 65 vaccinated by end of March?

What if I stay at home, gamble it and win, then spend it all on drugs?

I'm all for a universal citizen/basic income.

Of course you can't have everyone at home. Supermarkets need to open so you need transport for goods and staff and food production and a whole load of other things.

I think they are on schedule currently to get most people above 65 vaccinated by end of March?

Mr Johnson wouldn't commit to numbers the other night. Originally the UK was expecting 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine this year but that has fallen to 4 million for some reason. I think AstraZeneca also has productions delays or difficulties. My confidence in 20 million people having two doses by Easter is low.

You might teleport to April not having remembered the previous few months. Which might be a win.

How does that help control the spread of the disease, and resultant burden on NHS?

https://twitter.com/antoniosteve/status/1345090473975754754?s=19

Kent - 137% ICU bed occupancy, massive case rates. AFAIK, the primary schools around Canterbury are still going back on the 4th. WHY?

spend it all on drugs

Calpol or Special-K?

Both.

Breaches incur punishing fines or prison.

First lockdown was scary, cause we don’t know the level of enforcement on top of the virus spreading.

Now everyone know how lax the government is with enforcement and their messages/u-turn, they don’t take it as seriously as before.

The only reason I could think of is that the gov have some data on number of nhs workers living in each borough and wanted to keep schools open in boroughs with lots of nhs employees so they could continue to go to work. Probably not likely though tbh.

It doesn’t, but the government can’t stamp out the virus without having to considering economic and social factors.

School is pretty important, as is the ability to run businesses because your children are able to go to school.

If this modelling is correct, it looks like the indecision will come at a heavy price
https://twitter.com/globalhlthtwit/status/1345140662056972292

Also Barnet, Enfield and Haringey share a hospital trust.

Big issue with subsequent lockdowns of greater severity is that huge swathes of the country don’t give a fuck anymore, and the fear inducing rhetoric of March was a one trick pony. I guess they could try enforcement but the police services are so hollowed out that probably won’t work either.

Time will tell what approach is the right one for western democracies where you can’t enforce behaviour like you can in places like China. Maybe the USA have the least damaging strategy at a macro level, taking all the deaths as early as possible and disrupting their economy/way of life the least?

Thanks daughters laughing

As ever, money solves - almost - anything.

If the government chuck money at the problem, people will stay home.

(They won’t do this though).

Is there good evidence to suggest that non-compliance with lockdown measures is having a significant impact on our ability to manage the virus in the UK?

Genuine question - I haven't looked.

I’m not sore if that question is answered directly but if you look at the cultural response to pandemic in countries in SE Asia they have been incredibly successful in containing the virus.